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Denver's van Gogh exhibit closes big with a 40-hour marathon

By Ray Mark RinaldiThe Denver Post

Posted:
01/21/2013 12:01:00 AM MST

Updated:
01/21/2013 08:36:01 AM MST

Ray Hart and his wife, Kathie, of Thornton browse through the "Becoming Van Gogh" catalog while taking a short break during the 3 a.m. tour of the exhibit at the Denver Art Museum on Sunday. The popular exhibit closed its 13-week run over the weekend with a sold-out, round-the-clock showing that started at 8 a.m. Saturday and finished at 11:59 p.m. Sunday. (Seth A. McConnell, The Denver Post)

The swarm is nine deep around the artist's orange-and-red "Bowl with Zinnias." Fifteen people are waiting patiently for a peek at his "Blossoming Almond Branch," a pinkish still life that's less than a foot square.

If anyone needed proof the museum's latest blockbuster was a hit — this is the final bit of it. "Becoming Van Gogh" stayed open for 40 hours straight as it closed its exclusive run here Sunday and the entire marathon was sold out.

At this hour, the crowd is transitioning from the "stayed ups" to the "got ups." A trio of club kids, in ski caps and skinny jeans, are moving along; a few families with strollers are straggling in.

It's late — past late, really — and yawns are being executed with discretion. But there's a durable energy in the room fueled by the presence of 70 works of one of the most famous painters in the world.

Metro State student Graydon Craddock is pushing through the end of a long day. He's standing near "Houses with Thatched Roofs," a van Gogh sketch set on a cold, winter morning, just like the one he has braved to bring some out-of-town friends to the museum.

"I worked a nine-hour shift, had a few drinks and here I am," he said. This early in the morning, endurance is in the eye of the beholder.

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Wendy Alfredsen was working on adrenaline. Her band, called Dear Marsha, had a gig Saturday night, so she just kept on keeping on. So did her friend Michelle Carney. Both were grateful for the chance to check out van Gogh's wiry, wavy trees and electric landscapes.

"I would come at anytime of night to see this," said Carney.

"And you did," said Alfredsen.

"When are you going to see all of this in one place?" Carney asked.

A cup of hot chocolate was all 9-year-old Amelia Jonas needed to get in the moment. Her mother, Shannon Woody, rustled her from bed shortly before 2 a.m., bundled her up and brought her in for an "experience she won't forget."

Amelia was going strong. She brought her sketchbook and was copying a classic van Gogh wheat field.

"We live in Denver," Woody said. "We don't get a chance to see something like this often."

That chance propelled "Becoming Van Gogh" into a smash for DAM, among the biggest in its 12-decade history. The show, which opened Oct. 21, sold out on 57 days of its run.

The museum is yet to officially tally sales for the special exhibition, which required a separate ticket, but overall museum attendance for the last quarter of 2012 was about 280,000, maybe a third above average. Memberships boomed to 30,000 households.

Patrons view van Gogh's painting titled "Vase with Lilacs, Daisies and Anemones" during the 3 a.m. tour of the "Becoming Van Gogh" exhibit at the Denver Art Museum on Sunday. The exhibit closed Sunday after selling out on 57 days during its run. (Seth A. McConnell, The Denver Post)

Museumgoers stood in line to pay $25 a ticket and brought that goodwill into the museums's gift shop. The $50 "sunflowers" handbags sold out, as did the "starry night" scarves. The museum went to a second printing on the show's highly regarded catalog and, by last week, all 16,000 of them were gone.

Instead of relying on van Gogh's superstar paintings of sunflowers and swirling skies, it mixes drawings and paintings to piece together a tale of how van Gogh developed his talents.

The show has a clear narrative, contextually enhanced by works from 20 of his peers, such a Camille Pissarro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Emile Bernard.

There's more than a little risk in such an effort. Will the paintings come through? Will the crowds care? DAM remained committed, as part of its goal to up its game, to bring what director Christoph Heinrich describes as "a world-class program adequate to a world-class city."

Efforts like this go beyond a city's border. Tourists have come from across the country to see "Becoming Van Gogh." In the 4 a.m. crowd Sunday was chatty Grant Walther, in from Wasilla, Alaska, to see the show. An aspiring filmmaker, he's writing a screenplay on van Gogh and saw DAM's exhibit as a way to connect the dots of the story.

"If it ever gets made into a movie, I'll have Denver to thank," he said.

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